Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique of returning a value indicating a status or the like in response to a request from a host that performs status monitoring.
Description of the Related Art
Conventional status monitoring methods for an image processing apparatus connected to a network include a monitoring technique to acquire status information from an image processing apparatus using periodic polling monitoring by a monitoring application that runs on an information processing apparatus serving as a host. The monitoring technique includes an easy monitoring method for monitoring an image processing apparatus using Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and Management Information Base (MIB) information. For example, the monitoring application performs status monitoring by accessing a specific MIB object included in the image processing apparatus to acquire an MIB value.
Examples of the MIB object, which is acquired by the monitoring application, include the following status objects, which are standardized based on the Host Resources MIB in the Request for Comments (RFC):
(1) hrDeviceStatus
(2) hrPrinterStatus
(3) hrPrinterDetectedErrorState
Meanings of values acquirable by the above-mentioned MIB object are standardized by the RFC.
The monitoring application analyzes values of the MIB object acquired from an image forming apparatus with the MIB object used alone or in combination with other objects, thus performing status monitoring of the image forming apparatus (for example, see Japanese Patent No. 2886150).
However, the RFC specification is being updated with the advancement of technology. For example, values of the above-mentioned object hrPrinterDetectedErrorState were defined by RFC 1514, and, after that, the specification thereof was extended by RFC 2790. Therefore, a monitoring application that does not follow the specification extended by RFC 2790 is not able to correctly analyze values acquired from an image processing apparatus, and, as a result, is not able to correctly determine the status of the image processing apparatus.
For example, in the case of a monitoring mechanism that is incorporated as a part of a host operating system (OS) and is, therefore, not able to be altered, the monitoring mechanism cannot cope with the above-described change of the RFC specification and cannot correctly grasp the status of the image processing apparatus.
For example, in the case of a Windows (registered trademark) OS, the status of a device can be determined by polling values of the object hrPrinterDetectedErrorState included in the Host Resources MIB in the RFC using SNMP/MIB. The object hrPrinterDetectedErrorState was defined by RFC 1514 and, after that, the specification thereof was extended by RFC 2790. Windows XP/VISTA, which do not follow the extended specification, cannot correctly interpret the values returned by the extended specification and thus cannot correctly acquire the device status in some cases. For example, although Windows 8 is able to determine “out of paper”, Vista and XP may erroneously regard such a value as “off line” and “ready”, respectively.